


What The Hell is Otabek Altin: A Comprehensive Flow Chart

by awkwardedgeworth



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Med AU, Patient death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 21:12:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11170176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardedgeworth/pseuds/awkwardedgeworth
Summary: "Otabek is a cardiac surgeon?!" Yuri swats his arm as Georgi's voice raises several octaves. "From John Hopkins!? What the fuck is he doing here in this little town?! How did you find out?"





	What The Hell is Otabek Altin: A Comprehensive Flow Chart

**Author's Note:**

> opening scene taken from episode three of doctors. loosely inspired from all the medical dramas ive seen that includes doctors and romantic doctor, teacher kim (and goblin).  
> disclaimer: i am not in med school, but i currently am attending my practicum there (6AM shifts i cry)
> 
> MLA: medical laboratory assistants, they take blood, stool, sputum and urine from patients and are commonly called vampires. they also accession some orders if needed  
> MLT: medical laboratory technicians, they're the ones who analyze the samples  
> GS: general surgery, they specialize in the gastrointestinal tract (digestive system)  
> CS: cardiac (cardiacthoracic) surgeon, they specialize in organs inside the chest cavity  
> ED: emergency department  
> CCU: cardiac care unit
> 
> Here are some links if you're interested in the topics I incorporated into the fic:  
> http://medicalscenewriter.blogspot.ca/2013/02/vital-signs-during-cardiac-arrest-scene.html  
> http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/756835-overview#a10  
> http://columbiasurgery.org/conditions-and-treatments/aortic-dissection
> 
> Self beta'd

"And how are we doing this fine morning?"

The patient sitting on the bed stares at Yuri then at Victor before turning purple.

" _You swines!_ " He spits, showering Victor's face with saliva. Yuri snickers. "You!— _You stupid!_ —"

Victor, the perfect vision of a calmness, smiles as he wipes his face, turning to Yuri, "How long has he been like this?"

"Since he woke up, Doctor," The patient jerks here and there, pausing to scratch at the bandages surrounding his head. Yuri looks down at his chart, noting the concerning tone Mila wrote her observations in. "I think you should contact the Psychiatry Department." He flips a few pages, further ignoring the patient's angry meltdown and trying not to smile at the vein bulging out of Victor's forehead.

"That's a sound idea, Yurio!"

" _Don't think I won't kick you in the shins here!"_  

"A nurse kicking a surgeon?" Victor laughs as Yuri digs an elbow at his gut. Of all hospitals Victor could have gone to, he chooses one of the smallest ones in their town. "Ow, ow, please be gentle with me, Nurse Yuri!"

"I'll kill you," Yuri threatens him as he shoves him towards the next patient. "I'll hide your body by the ports and there won't be distinguishable features to differentiate you once you're at sea."

Victor wasn't a bad surgeon. He wasn't a bad doctor period. He was good— more than good. He could have gone anywhere but chose to follow Yuri to a small seaport town when his grandfather died, needing to escape Moscow for a little while. Several years later, Yuri had no wishes to go back home, liking the rainy weather Washington has to offer.

"That won't do!"

"Die," Yuri pushes Victor off, surprised when the heavy weight clinging to his right arm actually disappears. He looks up, expecting the head of the neurosurgery department walking in with his face pulled into a scowl. It won't be the first time Victor was dragged to the surgery ward by force since he forgot about his pager. 

"Yuri!" It's the new nurse, an anxious man with glasses and a round face. Yuri blinks at his poodle patterned scrubs. "How do you get to the emergency department? I was paged there but..."

"Ah sure," Yuri says, "Once you step out of the department, take a left until you reach the elevators. Go past them until you reach the CCU and take a right. There should be signs you can follow from there."

Yuuri nods, his glasses shifting down his nose, "Thank you!" He calls as he sprints away.

"New hire?" Victor's voice sounds odd, but Yuri nods anyway, flipping his charts as they walk out of the hallway and back to the nurse's station.

"Moved here a couple of days ago. Are you going to call the Psychiatry Department or should I do it? You probably need to order the medications..." Yuri trails off, looking up at Victor and blanching when the surgeon has a moon-struck look on his face, pink riding the tips of his ears and cheeks as he stares towards the direction Yuuri ran off in. " _No, Victor!_ "

"He's dreamy!"

" _Die!_ "

 

Yuri is on two minutes away from falling asleep on his feet when he sees it, the fog of a double eight hour shift being swiped from his brain like a windshield wiper on a car.

"Mila! _Mila!_ "

She jolts up from her nap, a red mark on her cheek where she'd pressed it against a binder ring, curls askew.

" _There's a murderer walking towards us!_ " Yuri hisses at the same time Mila gushes quietly, " _Oh,_ he's hot!"

He knows he's not seeing things, and states as so, "There's a man walking towards us with _blood_ splattered all over his shirt front, hag— are you blind?! Call security!" Maybe sneaking hot sauce into Victor's coffee and making him spit all over the new nurse made him deserve a month of graveyard shifts, but he sure as hell doesn't deserve being brutally murdered along with Mila on a slow Wednesday night. If he dies, who's going to feed Sasha? Who's going to make sure Victor keeps himself in line from terrorizing Yuuri? 

"Excuse me?"

In his horror, Yuri realizes that he's been too busy recounting his life to notice the murderer. Mila snatches her arm from his grip and fixes her hair, beaming a smile, and Yuri wants to yell traitor. "Yes? How can we help you?"

" _By calling security!—_ " His warning gets cut off with a strategic jab to his ribs, and he falters, choking.

Beautiful Lovely Stranger with Nice Eyebrows shoots them a confused look, "Is...there something wrong?"

"Nope!" Mila stabs him in the ribs again, and Yuri gives up, hoping that he will be forgiven when he arrives at the pearly gates. He tried his best in preventing a murder, but Mila had to be blindsided by a pretty face. He massages his side mournfully instead.

"Is your friend alright?" Beautiful Lovely Stranger asks. If Yuri wasn't reeling from the pain, he'd lift his face and bare his teeth. _Maybe_ he just wants to be one with his paperwork.

"He's great," His fellow nurse chirps, sounding all too gleeful, "He's constipated you see. Too much junk food. How can we help you?"

Yuri is going to kill Mila.

"Ah, I was sent to collect blood from the ED. There was blood everywhere and my scrub top was soaked through. Do you carry any spare ones by any chance?"

He pauses, tilting his head up and looking over the man again.

Because the nurse's station is high, he didn't catch the tell tale signs of scrub pants with its many pockets stitched to the sides. The man is pulling at the collar of his white tee, meeting Yuri's eyes, he waves his hospital ID.

Yuri feels himself flush. Busted, then.

"Of course we do," Yuri hears Mila say as she bends down and slides a cupboard door aside. "What size do you wear? We only have light blue ones here, so you'll have to do make with that."

"It's fine, I wear a medium."

Mila pops up almost immediately and passes the top. Beautiful Stranger thanks her with a hesitant smile and was about to say something when the pager by his waist beeps urgently. He reads the little green screen, raises his eyebrows, and breaks off into a run.

Mila, looking too satisfied like the cat who ate the canary, sighs and leans on her elbows. Yuri coughs pointedly.

"Oh, you're here."

"Thank you for noticing my presence," He scowls, leaning back on his chair and looking up at the fluorescent lights. The watch on his wrist tells him that he has seven more hours of his double shift left. He should complain to Yakov, double shifts are dangerous. What if Yuri accidentally kills a patient by giving him too much IV? 

She sighs and leans her head on his shoulder, "He was dreamy."

He feels a sense of déjà vu, "You don't even know his name."

"Otabek Altin. It was on his ID."

"And I thought you have shit eyes," He remarks smartly, shrugging her off gently. "What department is he in?"

Mila jumps on her keyboard, typing in her username and looking up the staff working tonight. Yuri snorts a little, thinking how she should have been promoted to Team Leader instead of Sara if she was that enthusiastic with patients, "Laboratories."

"Obviously."

"Either MLA or MLT then," Mila purses her lips, deep in thought as she plays with her hair. "Why would he go all the way to the Neuro ward though? Shouldn't they have spare scrubs near the emergency department?"

"Maybe he wants to go on a walk, hell only knows how tired I am sitting on this chair," Yuri complaints, opening an eye, "Rock, paper, scissor!"

Mila screeches when she looks at Yuri's scissors to her paper, glaring at the wall to see a patient paging from room 2, "Cheater!" She growls as she stands up and leaves the nursing station.

 

"Yuri! _Yuri!_ "

He follows Victor's panicked yells, weaving among the beds in the ER until he sees a furious man throttling Victor by his tie.

Yuri sighs, diving into the scene as he pulls Victor back (with great difficulty) and allows the security guards to fuss over the patient. He turns to Victor, who's urgently fixing his hair with a compact mirror he carries in one of his pockets.

"Old man, how many times must I tell you? Lose the tie."

Rebounding quickly from his near death, Victor frowns, "But this colour compliments my skin! I have to look professional."

"We can bury you in a suit. That's professional, right?"

"How _are_ you a nurse? A head nurse at that," Victor grumbles, edging away when more security guards hustle past them. He fixes his dark purple tie and passes Yuri a clipboard, "That patient has a head trauma. There might be swelling in the brain so tell one of the surgeons in the on-call room to prepare."

"You're the one on call, stupid."

Victor blinks, "Oh right. Then tell—"

"I'll ask Chris to come, I know," Yuri waves as Victor makes a bee line to the surgical wards, nearly running over an intern in the process. Surgeons don't usually wander around the ER, but since they're short-staffed (the Yakov in his head snorts, " _We've always been short-staffed!_ "), surgeons do make the occasional rounds if a doctor isn't there. 

He checks the clock perched on the wall and jogs over to the nurse's station, nodding to the junior nurse bending over to fix a jammed printer as he pulls the phone towards him. 

After Chris answers the phone, with another groan and dark mumbling about how Victor attracts surgeries like a moth to a flame during night shifts, Yuri hangs up and goes behind the desk, jiggling the mouse and registering a patient into the records as he books an operating room.

"...Yuri..."

He looks up to see one of the new hires in his department bite his lip nervously, "Yes?"

"There's...a situation."

He inwardly sighs, logs out of his account and rises, "Lead the way, Kenma."

When Kenma leads him back towards the neurology ward, he frowns, baffled as he sees Beautiful Stranger arguing quietly with one of the new junior lab assistants who had been assigned his ward, who looks flustered. The patient lies half asleep between them, an untied tourniquet on their arm.

"What's going on?"

Otabek looks up, gesturing to a syringe full of blood and an uncapped tube with a light blue top, "I told her she can't unscrew the tube for this test. Citrate tubes needs an exact ratio of 9:1 of blood and anticoagulant," He's wearing a dark blue scrub this time around, a white lab coat hanging off his broad shoulders and emitting a serious need for caffeine by the dark circles hanging around his eyes.

"He's right, have you been filling them in all that way?"

"T-The lab needs one stat and I thought syringes were the quickest way since the tubes can fill up slowly."

"If the patient is on blood thinners I don't think their blood will fill the tube slowly," Kenma mumbles behind him.

Yuri waves Kenma off to resume to his duties, "You can't do that," He says to the lab assistant.

"I'm sorry," She mumbles, looking up at the lights as she blinks furiously.

"It's fine, here," He plucks some tissue from the nurse's station and hands it to her, "Talk to me after you come back from the bathroom."

She nods twice and hurries off, placing her stack of requisitions on the station. Yuri grabs his phone from his pocket and makes a note to submit a report, "Sorry about that."

Otabek quickly throws the syringe into the biohazard bucket on a nearby cart, shrugging, "It's not a problem," His hands are quick as he ties the tourniquet on the patient's arm. Yuri watches him snap two tubes in succession, pulling the tourniquet off and taping the cotton ball onto the skin, "Could you check the antibiotics given to Bed 2?"

"Huh?"

Otabek looks down at his pager, frowning and taking the requisitions on the station before running off once again, lab coat billowing after him.

Mila waves a hand over Yuri's face, tapping on his jaw as she goes behind the station to update a record, "You look like you've seen a ghost. Or Chris pole dancing again."

 

He glares at the piece of paper, slashing 'MLA' with a furious swing of his pen as Victor snores in one of the beds to the side of the on-call room, eye mask blocking the afternoon rays as Yuri spins absent-mindedly on a spinny chair.

_"'What The Hell is Otabek Altin: A Comprehensive Flow Chart.'"_

"AGH!" Yuri yells, jumping up on his seat and sending Chris his best stink eye as he sits on the edge of Victor's bed, who continues to snore like someone who hasn't slept for five days. "Don't _do_ that!" 

Chris apologizes with a smile, shrugging off his bomber jacket and long sleeve, taking his dress shirt out of his bag, "What's that, though? I'm curious."

"You're too nosy for your own good."

"It comes with being in a small hospital. Come on, who's Otabek Altin? Is he the new lab tech who made everyone in the pediatric ward cry before their bed time?"

"What?" Yuri asks, amused.

Chris nods, "According to Emil, he came to draw blood on the fly since he doesn't trust the MLAs. One of the kids was running a fever and we saw something weird on his blood cultures, so the lab sent him to get some tubes and he looked real dead and scared the kids."

"That's him. Kind of short? Brooding-looking?"

Chris winks, "That's the one. He's a lab tech," He then pauses before reaching in his back for his stethoscope and small notebook, "Although I find him a little funny, to be fair. He doesn't talk like a tech."

"Right? I find that weird too. He correct a patient's antibiotics.... Do they get training in pharmacology?"

"Beats me, I'm not sure," Chris takes over his chair as Yuri runs out the door, his pager beeping furiously, "See you!"

"Bye!" Yuri yells behind him, taking the stairs two at a time as he ties his hair back and rolls up his sleeves. He squeezes between the two paramedics wheeling someone into the ER and sees a large man loom over Mila, who looks like she doesn't get paid enough to deal with hooligans.

Yuri arrives at her shoulder, "What's the problem?"

"Are you her supervisor?" The man sneers, gesturing to the old woman curled up on her side, moaning. "She tried to do some funny stuff to my mom, and I really don't appreciate it—"

"I need to put these electrodes, sir. We need to monitor her vitals," Mila explains, frowning as she stands up tall. Yuri sighs. He's familiar with these kinds of patients.

"Pretty sure you need permission before doing that, Missy—" He cuts himself off, pushing back Otabek, who walks into the scene with a requisition. He stumbles sharply and the rack he was pushing bumps into the edge of a side table. "Excuse me?! What are you doing?"

"Taking blood. This is a _stat_ order. The lab needs the results in an hour and less." Otabek says, tight lipped like he has dealt with difficult patients for years. He turns his attention to the woman, skirting around the man, Mila and Yuri, "Excuse me? Are you Mrs. Jocelyn Hunter? I'm from the lab and I'm here to take your blood."

"Hey!" The man grabs the lapels of Otabek's lab coat and shoves his face close. As he's distracted, Mila and another nurse makes quick work of the electrodes. "I didn't give you my permission!"

"Your mother is here for a suspected heart attack, sir. If we can confirm that it's true, we can lessen the damage by injecting her medication—" The man shakes Otabek and Yuri feels his throat tighten as a fleeting dark look consumes Otabek's features.

"Look—"

"Yuri!" One of the ER nurses yelps, the machines connected to the woman turns into one monotonous beep. "She's flat-lined."

Everyone pauses for a split second before acting.

Otabek shoulders the man away, pressing his fingers to her neck, "No pulse. Page Dr. Giacometti!" He looks up and points to Yuri, "Grab the defibrillator!"

Yuri remembers pushing the cart with a cold calmness, his hands cold against the metal. Mila is beside the patient's bed restraining the guardian as Otabek shakes his lab coat off and climbs onto the bed, tension showing on his shoulders as he administers compressions. There's a muffled snap of ribs breaking and a high pitch noise as the defibrillator charges. 

A beep. Someone's hand grabbing the paddles, gel being spread. Otabek yells clear, eyes glued onto the vitals machine with a desperation that Yuri's all too familiar with.

They wait.

Another charge. Yuri leaves the machine with Mila and runs to grab an ampule of epinephrine, barely registering Chris charging into the room to take over CPR as Otabek staggers off to the side, still looking at the monitor. He's the only one breathing heavily, the air wheezing past his dry lips as all of them pray for one thing.

Another charge. Yuri runs to grab bicarb.

Another charge.

"Clear!"

Another charge.

Yuri grabs atropine and another ampule of epinephrine.

No pulse.

" _Clear!_ "

Chris switches off with Otabek, checking his watch. Yuri looks at the old woman, her eyes closed, hair shifting here and there as Otabek's hair falls into his eyes. Another charge. Otabek harshly whispers  _please, please, please_ under his breath, ID clipped onto the neckline of his scrubs swinging wildly.

" _Clear!_ "

" _Please, please, please!_ "

"Altin," Chris begins. Yuri looks at his watch and takes a deep breath. "No code."

Otabek falters as the heart rate monitor continues to flat line, a dull noise that permeates into every corner of the room. He looks down at the woman's face, nodding once before moving back.

Yuri turns off the machines as the ER falls into an uneasy silence. Chris announces the time of death and Mila tugs Otabek out of the area. Yuri wheels the defibrillator to where it was and leaves Chris with the guardian, who's blank-faced and standing rigidly.

And as easy as the patient came into the department, her body is moved, and the bed is set for the next patient.

 

He finds Otabek in the on-call room later, clearly staying past his shift since he's sitting on the couch, nursing a cup of cold coffee as he stares at the wall. He looks up to Yuri before resuming his stance.

"You did well."

Otabek swirls the coffee in his hands gently, "You don't need to comfort me," There's a pile of tissues in the garbage can next to him, crumpled and half hidden below an empty package of chips. "I've seen my fair cases of death. We were told to not be so attached to patients." 

"Just making sure you're okay," Yuri says, sitting on the furthest end of the couch lightly. He wants to ask more questions, but this isn't the time for it. " _Are_ you okay?"

Otabek contemplates this for a moment, "I suppose not."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really."

Yuri stands up and nods, "Go home, you look like a mess," Otabek's usual neat hair has completely fallen out of his normal style, bangs falling over everywhere and making him look vulnerable. "Chris booked you off tomorrow." He enters one of the bedrooms and closes the door, looking at the bed before slumping on it and shutting his eyes.

When Yuri hears the telltale sign of the door being quietly shut, he opens his eyes and spends the rest of his break looking at the ceiling, deep in thought. He opens his phone and types, _Otabek Altin_. 

He reaches the third page of Google before swearing.

 

"He's a cardiac _surgeon?!_ " Georgi yells at him one day when Yuri drops by the pharmacy, several patients looking at them. Yuri swats his arm as Georgi's voice raises several octaves. "From _John Hopkins!?_ What the fuck is he doing here in this little town?! How did you find out?"

"I googled it last week," He says in a dull tone, already regretting his choice to confide in Georgi. It was a better option than Victor, who's a social butterfly and flirts with every department, or Mila, who's friends with all the nurses. At least Georgi spends most of his days in the little pharmacy at the entrance of the hospital. "Respect his privacy. If he doesn't want to tell us it's none of our business."

"Why the hell would he be doing here? He could have gone to other bigger, better hospitals! And is he insane, working as a lab tech instead of a surgeon?!"

Seung-gil passes by them, glaring nastily at Georgi as he makes his way to the staff elevator further down the hall.

"Pipe down."

"I can't!" Georgi shrieks, "Why would a surgeon work as a lab tech?! He's making four times less! They're in that room all day long squinting at microscopes and being around colonies of bacteria!"

Yuri rolls his eyes and waves goodbye, leaving Georgi to his theatrics. 

The media blocked it off pretty well, but Yuri scrolled through Google and all of the country's news blogs before landing on a small highlight, a former governor's death for an aortic dissection as he arrested and flat-lined. The details were covered up, but it seemed as if Otabek was deemed the sole reason for the operation's failure.

 

Victor suddenly ropes everyone into a surprise party for Otabek's 35th birthday.

Otabek, when he walks into the on-call room in normal street clothes, scrubs in a bag, takes it amiably and thanks them warmly. Mila nudges a cake at him and Chris throws confetti over him as he blows out the candles. They hastily shovel down the cake before starting their shifts, one of them leaving one by one as their pagers starts beeping.

After Yuri dances away from the children begging him for Halloween treats, he decides to go outside and looking at the stars for a bit, lounging on a cold bench.

He checks his messages, replying to Lilia about his future schedule, when Otabek appears, a can of juice in one hand.

"Sorry."

"Hey, it's fine, you can sit with me," Yuri moves aside, wincing when he leaves his warm spot and freezes his butt again. "Didn't think you'd work on your birthday."

Otabek shrugs, "My family's abroad anyway, I have nothing better to do."

"Do you usually spend your birthdays alone?"

"Not always, sometimes my sisters visit, but they have their own families now," He turns to Yuri an offers another juice can from his lab pocket, "Want one?"

Their cold fingers meet briefly as Yuri cracks the opening, sipping the apple juice as he looks at the dark trees. He can tell the sky is brightening ever so subtly, the blackness making way for a dark blue. Soon, it'll be shot with purples, pinks and oranges.

"I left Hopkins because I was a coward."

"...Oh."

"Everyone was whispering about it behind my back, it was bound to be known eventually," Otabek says all of this as if he's talking about the weather and not the incident that costed him his career. "The patient went into arrest then flat-lined. If I hadn't froze I could have saved him."

"Why a lab tech?"

"Easy, I don't like interacting with people that much, I become drained."

"Why here then?"

"It's quiet," Otabek turns to look at him, "And no one knows me. The pace of life here is nice, better than Hopkins."

"Really?"

He smiles, "Really. Here, I can sleep for six hours per night," Yuri is sure he meant that as a joke, but he looks past the carefully gelled hair, dark blue scrubs and white shoes and really looks at the fine laugh lines emerging around Otabek's mouth and tired eyes. "Everyone here is very nice, they work well with each other. It's more of a cohesive unit."

Yuri thinks about the surgeons commanding the ER when general doctors are booked off, and how the lab techs sometimes take blood when it's a graveyard shift and the only lab assistant is busy running around in another ward. "Mmm. I guess we are."

Otabek blinks, before throwing his head back, laughing.

"You have no idea, Yuri."

 

Yuri bursts through the laboratory doors, zooming to the Hematology section and blowing a puff of air on the skin of Otabek's exposed neck. The latter jumps and nearly knocks a rack of slides onto the floor.

"Since you're new and you don't know, the prima-donna neurosurgeon with silver hair has the hots for one of my new coworkers but Victor is too sissy to take Yuuri to the movies alone so he recruited me to make it less awkward. Please come and save me from third-wheeling them," It all comes out in one rush, and Yuri almost bites his tongue in four different areas but it's out there and Otabek is blinking at him, a five o'clock shadow and his hair disheveled present.

"Huh?"

"Come with me to the movies," Yuri repeats, wondering if Otabek would understand if the sentences were shorter.

"Okay," Otabek leans forward into his microscope, left hand pressing a tally counter as his right hand move the microscope stage around. "Tell me when to meet you."

"Great!" Yuri slaps a sticky note with all the information on the top of his lab reports and high tails it out of there, leaning against the door when he exits.

"Hot date?" Seung-gil whispers, appearing out of nowhere like a ghost.

Yuri yells, " _Don't do that!_ "

Seung-gil laughs and enters the lab, walking towards the back and disappearing out of view.

When the weekend rolls around, Yuri feels faintly sick and wonders if he caught a stomach bug right before the movies. Mila nearly dies from laughter and teases him about the eels having the time of their life in his stomach, writhing with ecstasy from seeing Otabek out of scrubs in a non-hospital setting.

_Did you know_ , she texts, _that the butterflies-in-the-stomach phenomenon is caused by blood shunted away from the organ in a flight or flight situation?_

He tells her that he doesn't need anymore salt to be rubbed into his wound.

Victor and Yuuri are already there, looking too happy and lost in their own world as Yuri leans against the wall in his black raincoat and jeans, looking for black hair.

He groans when Victor catches sight of Otabek, dressed in a black turtleneck with a leather jacket. Here lies Yuri's soul.

Yuuri and Victor screams straight through Train to Busan. The ending makes Yuri sniff a little, discreetly wiping his eyes when he pretends to fix his hair. Otabek presses a pack of tissues to him and Yuri relents, taking some and shoving it back.

Night falls fast now that winter is quickly approaching. It had been light when they entered the theater, but it's now midnight blue above them, the street lamps lighting the strip as cars zoom past. 

They're walking towards the restaurant when Otabek grabs him by the wrist gently and pushes them down a side street. They end up walking to a park and ditching Victor. Yuri's pretty sure that neither of them will miss their presence for the next couple of hours. Heck they might even forget that Otabek and Yuri didn't follow them.

By some odd events, Yuri accompanies Otabek as he grocery shops, casually strolling down the aisle with a basket in hand as they point at the items and exchange memories. Yuri talks about all of the memorable patients in the neuro ward, some of them swearing at him when they wake up from an operation with the drugs still flowing in their system. Otabek smiles so wide that Yuri finds a dimple, and talks about his pre-med days and family in Almaty.

 

"Congratulation on your nuptials!" Georgi showers him with rose petals he's sure that's from the hospital's gift shop. Yuri spits a few that make their way into his mouth, scowling.

" _What?!_ "

Chris pops out of the lab, clearly hiding as he waits for an ambush, namely when Yuri is called to deliver some blood samples straight away. "We heard all about it from Vitya. You two sneaked off on your own!" Then Chris _giggles_.

Yuri wants to stab his pen straight through Chris's hands, GS surgeon be damned. "What did Victor say?"

"Two you sneaked away and formed your own date! And he took you home by his bike!"

" _I'm going to kill him!_ " Yuri roars.

Mila dances out of the lab as well, picking him up and spinning him until Yuri turns green, "No can do! He's in the operating room right now!" She takes pity on him and lowers him down when his yelling turns into feeble requests to empty his stomach. "Sorry, sorry. Here, water," Yuri snatches it with less grace, feeling like the world had tilted off its axis, "Are you two a thing then?"

"Yes, I want to know too," Chris says, crouching down as Yuri scowls at his crocs, an absolute abomination compared to the leopard printed shoes Victor gave to Yuri for the hospital.

"Spill the beans," Georgi punctuates this by rattling a large bottle of piroxicam.

Yuri crinkles the cup, "I don't know,okay? _Shesh!_ " He wishes he had more water to drink, finding the sudden silence unbearable as he looks up and sees Chris and Georgi uncharacteristically muted. The bottle of piroxicam goes back on the bench, and Chris studies his crocs.

Mila saves him by tugging him back to their ward. Yuri scowls at the floors, hating that he looks so pathetic in the wake of some handsome lab tech, forced to feel like he's in middle school again.

He buries himself in work, feet tired and achy as he dives into his bed at home, sinking into the downy pillows.

 

It's only at three in the morning that the neuro ward becomes quiet. Yuuri is typing on the only computer since the other one is out of commission, so Yuri hauls his ass and walks to the ER, borrowing their computer for a moment. 

"Hi, I'm looking for Otabek."

He takes in the hair, elegantly twisted into a bun, along with her hazel eyes and expensive clothes.

"He's not here," Not exactly a lie, but Yuri is wary. Otabek's probably sleeping in the on-call room or slouching outside even though the weather has dipped into the negatives.

"I'm here to see him," The woman says persistently. Her wedding band gleams.

Otabek arrives in the ER not a moment later, halting in his progress when he catches sight of Yuri's guest.

"Zarina."

"Imagine my surprise when I flew back to find you gone," Her eyes are hard and Yuri knows he should turn away from personal matters, but he can't and instead watches on, his heart feeling oddly constricted. Her pretty mouth is twisted back into a snarl. "You ran away from Hopkins."

Otabek takes her wrist and drags her away, passing his requisition to a passing nurse in the ER as he starts to argue in low voices. The duo disappear behind a corner, and Yuri returns to his work.

He becomes distracted throughout the rest of his shift, trying to remember if Otabek had a wedding ring on his hand when they first met. He sourly logs his time and wraps his scarf around his neck, zipping his coat as he steps out of the hospital.

And right into Otabek leaning on the walls, hair mussed.

"...Is everything okay?"

"Stellar," Yuri nods slowly at the sarcasm.

"Your wife seems mad."

Otabek coughs out a wheeze, "Wife?"

"What?"

"Zarina is my eldest sister," Otabek laughs, "She was abroad at a different hospital when I decided to move here. She was also at Hopkin's, studied and specialized in trauma surgery before leaving. Is that why everyone was giving me strange looks?" He waves his left hand at Yuri, decidedly in a better mood as he shifts from sulking to cheery. "See? No wedding ring."

Yuri snaps, refusing to let his blush show, "Well, she didn't introduce herself at all! What were we supposed to think?"

"Don't jump to conclusions?" Otabek smiles, trying to be normal and failing spectacularly when his mouth wobbles. "Sorry...I don't feel too well."

"I know, stupid. Go home," The shivering tells Yuri that Otabek had been trying to turn himself into a popsicle for the past hour or so. Yuri frowns and reaches forward, grabbing a hand and squeezing it. "Geh, you're cold!"

Everything in this small port side town reminds him of a stagnant timeline. The ships come and go, their horns blaring periodically. Crime is at an all time low, the citizens fairly friendly, and winter had its ways of making Yuri wish for Moscow's sweltering summers. He shoves Otabek in with too much force and walks him to the lab.

Seung-gil ends up throwing them out for disrupting his work, shooing Otabek out early even though he still has two more hours to his shift. Yuri makes it his mission to see Otabek shuffling into the back of a cab, watching the yellow car turn into a speck at the end of the hospital driveway.

"Jesus!" He yelps, walking back into the building to get his forgotten lunch bag. Zarina is sitting in the lobby, a cup of coffee in her hands as she looks up.

"Thanks, but I'm not him."

"Sorry for surprising you," He apologizes, walking away when she stops him with a question.

"Are you Beka's friend?"

"...I guess. Why?"

Zarina's light eyes are like lasers, hazel so light they could pass for gold, her lips pursing like she would rather throw him outside and fight him with her heels on, "Beka doesn't like beaches but he likes taking walks." 

She downs the rest of her coffee and leaves, a trail of magnolia following her. Yuri stares after her, perplexed.

 

Victor and Yuuri become an official item. Mila and Chris are delighted, Yuri is disgusted.

"I napped on that couch," He says to Otabek, sitting on the love seat opposite as he bends down to Otabek's level. Victor and Yuuri are openly snuggling each other on their break and Yuri wishes there was another on-call room, but budgeting can only be so kind to them when Seung-gil had enough with five of their microscopes and ordered new ones, oozing death and destruction if any of them lifts so much as a pinky against his decision. 

"The couch must be so scandalized."

"Are you teasing me?!"

A smile, "No."

Yuri punches him in the arm, light enough that Otabek can still use his arms for work but hard enough that he winces, "Dick." 

"Apologies."

"Play nice you two!" Victor giggles from the couch, oozing love and whatever nasty things in the air. Yuri can barely look at him turning into an octopus. It would have been better if Yuuri was as shy about PDA in the on-call room as he was in the wards, but life is unfair and Yuuri eggs Victor on, snuggling into the crook of his shoulder and smiling. Disgusting. Yuri contemplates about throwing an ampule of IV at them. Or an ice pack.

He throws a cushion instead, hitting Victor's massive forehead, "Don't taint this room with your grossness!"

"You're a nurse! How can you compare our pure love to something like grossness?!"

"Pure my ass, you're making me uncomfortable! Get a room!"

Victor, to his absolute horror, extends a hand to Yuuri and gestures to one of the open rooms with a bunk bed and table. Those rooms were meant for sleeping or studying, and everyone blanches as Yuuri turns red and swats his hand, but follows him.

The door clicks shut. Yuri stabs the stereo system by the kitchenette to play something just in case.

"So, Otabek," Chris starts, lowering himself on the now unoccupied couch, wincing as he stretches his legs. He'd been in the operating room for eighteen hours. "I heard about Hopkins, are you comfortable talking about it?"

Yuri's in the middle of throwing another cushion when Otabek snatches his wrist and holds it down, "Yes, I'm fine."

Chris opens one lazy eye and stares, "Are you going to go back to them? The media was hushed up pretty nicely but your parting was one of the more graceful ones. I asked one of my friends at Hopkins and they said that they didn't exactly blame you."

"...I felt too guilty," Otabek finally says after a long pause of silence. "I hesitated for a split second before ordering CPR. It haunts me, knowing that if I had moved earlier I could have saved the governor's life," Yuri feels Otabek's fingertips grow cold, his wrist still being held. "My seniors told me that it wasn't my fault, and the outcome was pretty grim already, but still. I should have done everything I could have."

A few months ago, Otabek gave that cardiac arrest patient in the ER everything he had, the shadow of his previous failure weighing on his conscious. It must have been terrible.

Yuri twists his hand and squeezes Otabek's fingers, "I'm sure you tried your best."

A sad smile, "You wouldn't understand."

"No, you wouldn't," Chris agrees, and Yuri whips his head to lash at him, but is taken back by the tender expression he gives Otabek, "As a surgeon, only you can forgive yourself," He stands up and stretches before scratching the hair running down his jaw. "Sadly, despite our best efforts, sometimes it ends in failure."

When Chris bids them a goodbye, Yuri turns back to Otabek, face neutral but eyes wide with grief.

Slowly, Otabek squeezes his hand back.

 

"What was it like?"

Yuri takes a scoop of his frozen yogurt, lifting his eyes to see Otabek's curious eyes.

"Hopkins?"

"Mhm."

"It's big."

"No shit."

Otabek ponders about it, leaning back on the chair as they watch the cars whiz pass. Aside from the lone store associate dozing off, they're the only one in the shop despite the holiday season. Maybe it's too cold for frozen dessert.

"It felt like being a fish in an ocean, very easy to get lost in and let the waves dictate you, but I think that's how it is in big hospitals. The pace is naturally quicker and you're racing to catch up."

Yuri steals a mochi from his cup, "Hopkins doesn't offer a bachelors in lab science."

"I got that in Canada with a friend. He works at Toronto General as a supervisor now," Otabek supplies, watching Yuri take more of his mochi and not lifting a hand to stop him. "Why are you asking?"

"Do you miss it?" Yuri asks.

His hair falls out of the gel, brushing his eyebrows as Otabek shrugs, "Sometimes I do. It was my home for a bit...but you know what?"

Yuri raises a brow.

"I like the ports here," An easy smile curves his lips as Otabek reaches for Yuri's pretzels, "It's very calming to take my morning walks and pass by them."

 

There's no warning.

On Christmas morning, Yuri goes into work chirpy before being shoved aside as Chris drags him by the arm, nearly ripping the bone out of his socket as Yuri digs his heels in, listening to Mila swearing at Chris to drag his ass to the ER immediately.

His shouts are futile, and when he sees it, he runs past Chris and joins the cluster of nurses and Otabek surrounding a patient. An echocardiogram is shown on a laptop and all the colour from Otabek's cheeks vanish when he turns and sees Yuri and Chris standing by.

"Where's the cardiac surgeon?" He means Dr. Zhang.

"Stuck at a traffic incident. Ten car pile up from ice on the freeway," Mila yells from the nurse's station.

"Don't you have any other ones?"

"We have a cardiac unit, but only one surgeon," Chris says, looking at the screen. Yuri looks at the black and white images, trying to make sense of it. "Why?"

The patient on the bed writhes, his family helplessly fluttering their hands on his leg as they try to hold him down. Otabek rattles off orders for some painkillers before shakes his head, " _No_ , you need to find someone who can operate on him," He leans in to Chris, looking up. "This is a Type A aortic dissection. You _will_ get me a cardiac surgeon on the phone and I will update them with the patient's information and Minami will book an operating room as they come here."

He looks panicked. Worried. 

Scared.

The patient on the bed screams.

" _He can die from cardiac arrest, heart failure, bleeding or stroke if you don't get me someone on the line right now!_ " Otabek spits, "Blood is entering the walls of his aorta and if not enough gets circulated, he can also die from organ failure! _Chris!_ "

"There's no one else! Most cardiac patients are moved to the other hospital! There's ice everywhere and—" Chris looks at the vitals monitor, "—I don't think he'll make it if we wait for the ambulance to move him."

"What?!"

"The major highway is blocked with a ten car pile up. It's not going to get fixed right away, and this patient is in critical condition."

There's no one here who can help the man except for Otabek.

The hospital ID on Otabek's chest swings as Chris grabs his shoulders, "I—I can't—"

Quiet, Chris lowers his voice, knowing that he's asking something big, "The patient is dying."

"...I know."

"Dr. Zhang can't come."

A pause, Otabek looks down at his shoes before nodding, shrugging off his lab coat and tossing it to Mila.

Minami and Yuri are quickly being pushed to prepare the patient for surgery, grabbing forms and letting a lab assistant run into the scene to quickly draw blood for cross-matching. Yuri retracts the brakes from the bed and Mila is seen ushering the family out of the ER and into a different hallway 

"Do you think he can do it?" They grab a large elevator and Yuri leans back on the cold walls, looking at Minami.

"It's up to Beka."

It's not the best answer to give, nor the one Minami is looking for, but he accepts it and they're running down hallways, handing the patient off to a group of scrub nurses. 

Yuri stares into the glass door, watching Otabek march out to a large sink, bending down as his forearms become heavy with yellow soap suds.

When Otabek is done, his arms held up shoulder level, water dripping down his forearms, their eyes meet. 

He hates how Otabek had no choice in the matter.

Otabek smiles weakly before stepping into the room.

 

Dr. Zhang is present in the surgery room via phone speaker as he talks Otabek through any rough patches, his voice like an omnipotent presence. Yuri comes back to the surgery ward during his break and sees Otabek's face bending down, clusters of instruments and tubes coming out of the patient's chest cavity. The front of Otabek's gown is soaked with blood.

Yuri watches for a few more minutes before going back.

 

Come morning, Yuri comes into work an hour early, finding Otabek passed out on the couch from exhaustion.

When he wakes, he finds Victor's wool coat around his shoulders and that he's fallen asleep sitting on the floor, cheek resting on the same pillow as Otabek, who has a throw around his body.

 

"I'm going to ask for a helipad in the next meeting," Seung-gil says to Yuri as a greeting when he pops by the lab. His black hair is mussed up, a result from running the entire hematology and microbiology section all by himself at night since Otabek is still recovering from the surgery, sleeping like the dead once he woke up with a start and nearly crushed Yuri against the floor. "What do you think?"

"You have my vote."

"Good," He mumbles, before waving his hand over to the back room, "He's napping back there."

"Thanks," Yuri slips past the urine bench and enters the supply room.

Yuri gently shakes him awake, ignoring the mess of letters from John Hopkins in front of Otabek, "Hey."

"Oh, what—" A yawn, "—What time is it?"

"How long does it usually take for you to recover from surgeries?"

"Something like that? A week," Otabek jolts up, "Why? Is the patient's condition worsening—"

"No, sit back down! He's fine! He got transferred out of CCU and into a room!" Otabek's knees buckle and Yuri's back strains over the table. "He's doing well. You did a good job."

"He nearly died."

"He would have if it weren't for you," Yuri hands him a card, "His family wanted me to pass this to you," He sinks down into a rickety plastic chair as Otabek reads the card, tiny writing filling all of the empty space.

"...Thanks."

Yuri slips his hand into one of his scrub pockets and passes a packet of tissues. Otabek gives a shaky, watery laugh.

 

"You're not a registered surgeon when you operated on our patient," Yakov grunts as Otabek sits ram-rod straight at the end of a long table. He's wearing his usual dark blue scrubs and lab coat as Yakov frowns at him in a suit. Yuri nervously fiddles with his fingers, sitting off to the side. "You broke a policy and had Dr. Giacometti book a room under his name. That's another policy."

Otabek's voice is quiet, "Yes, sir."

"The patient's blood pressure dropped twice throughout the procedure. You nearly had to resort to CPR."

"Yes, sir."

"It says here that the patient's aorta was touched." 

"It was an accident. The first assistant's hand slipped, but we maintained the blood pressure and I quickly stitched it up."

Yakov leans forward, glaring, "Was there a rip or not?"

"There was, sir."

Yakov grunts and leans back, looking down at the papers. To his left is Otabek's former supervisor, who flew all the way from Hopkins to review the case.

"Have you had experience with an aortic dissection?" Yakov continues his list of questions.

Otabek's eyes darts to his supervisor, Dr. Baranovskaya, "Yes." 

"The surgery did not end well?"

"No."

"What happened?"

"The patient went into cardiac arrest and cannot be revived," Dr. Baranovskaya states, tilting her head as she narrows her eyes, "I think what you did is foolish Otabek, but the patient was saved. You did a good deed, but..."

"But you're still an unregistered surgeon, and we'll review your case before telling you the results," Yakov dismisses them curtly. Otabek stands and leaves the room, Chris and Yuri following him before the door shuts loudly.

Otabek sighs quietly as they head toward the elevators, "Thanks for coming with me."

"I'm sorry this happened," Chris says in a quiet voice. "I submitted my report but they don't seem to agree with me."

"Thanks for trying," It's strained, but Chris hesitantly smiles at the gratitude, "I really appreciate it."

The elevator opens to the third floor, and Chris shrugs on his coat back on to do his rounds.

Yuri glares at the metal doors closing, taking them back to the first floor, "I can't believe Yakov called your old supervisor back."

"It happens. I know I was an unregistered surgeon when I accepted."

"But it's unfair!"

Otabek smiles, "Life is unfair, did you know?"

Yuri glares at him, wondering how he could be still so upbeat about everything when he could get his license taken away or being kicked out of the hospital when he grabs Otabek's face and bends down for a kiss.

"Oh," Otabek says when they broke apart, blinking a lot. "Um."

The elevator door opens and Yuri storms out, leaving Otabek behind as he gets trapped when a patient on their way to surgery gets pushed in.

 

"Are you hiding?" Mila asks.

Yuri hisses at her, "No I'm not!"

"Right," She says skeptically, "Because you're hiding beneath the table and squished next to the cabinets. You're definitely not hiding. Who is it? Did you put hot sauce into Victor's coffee again— Oh! Hi, Otabek!"

Yuri holds his breath as Otabek's disembodied voice travels to his ears, "Hi, have you seen Yuri?"

Mila keeps her voice steady as Yuri digs his fingernails onto her ankles in warning, "He's answering a patient's call. I think they fell into the toilet. Is it urgent?"

"No, it's fine, I'll talk to him later. Thanks."

Yuri waits a few beats before sighing and wriggling out of his hiding spot, "Thanks, Mila—" 

Otabek is leaning on the nurse's station, chin in one hand as Yuri yelps and falls on his rear. He whips his head, "Mila, you liar!"

"Are you busy?" Otabek asks.

"Yes!" Yuri brushes his scrubs and looks wildly around the station. "I—I need to shred some documents."

"I already did that," Mila says as she walks away, that traitor. Yuri has been tossed to the piranhas. "I also, for your knowledge, have emptied the trash can and recycling bin, replaced all the missing pens, filled the printer with paper, and got myself coffee. All of the patients have fallen asleep, and I've changed the dressing for the patient in room 7. I'm going to the bathroom and will be back in five minutes, but I hear that no one is outside in the courtyard."

"Thanks, Mila," Otabek calls out to her retreating back. He offers his hand to Yuri, face neutral. "Want to take a walk?"

Yuri sighs and walks ahead of him, ignoring the hand.

In their unfortunate foresight, they forgot that sitting out in the courtyard in late winter is a terrible idea without coats. Otabek offers Yuri his lab coat, and Yuri looks at it for one second before slipping it on, desperate for whatever body heat is left.

"Nice weather we're having."

"Otabek, it's night time," Yuri chokes out a laugh, a little tension bleeding out of him.

"Still nice weather though. The night is clear."

"Is this about leaving you in the elevator?"

"Very much so," Otabek says gravely. "I was attacked by the scrub nurses and yelled at for being too slow to remove myself from the elevators. Imagine my crumbling pride, Yuri."

"I'm sorry your pride has taken damage."

"Are you making fun of me?"

"Are _you_ making of me?" Yuri counters, turning his head to see Otabek with a wry smile, "I can't tell if you're angry that I kissed you or if you're a masochist for enjoying seeing me in pain!"

"You look in good health to me."

"No, I'm not! My chest hurts every time I see you!"

"Chest pains? Don't say that to a cardiac surgeon. Are you sure you're not suffering from a case of tachycardia associated with one person, namely me? Because I have that whenever I see you," He slowly grabs Yuri's hand and presses it close to his chest, where Yuri can feel his above than normal heart rate pound. "Like now."

He's speechless.

Then he kicks Otabek on the shins, "What the hell? That was _so_ cheesy!"

"You walked right into it," Otabek winces. "Victor actually gave me that idea, though, but his contribution was only the part where I take your hand."

"You're a massive nerd, did you know?"

Otabek gives him a dry look, "I _did_ do a lot of schooling to be an expert in my field."

"I thought you murdered someone when we first met. There was so much blood on your shirt."

"I thought you were beautiful," Otabek says in return. "And I thought that you wouldn't judge me if the truth was to be let out."

"You gathered all of that from our first meeting?"

"Not all, you were observant. I slipped a couple of times," He meant the antibiotic incident. "I thought I could hide out in this unknown hospital, living by a small town until everyone at Hopkins forgot about me. I took the easy way out and hid, but it seemed useless," Otabek is smiling again, this time it's aimed at the sky. "I've stopped running away, I'm ready to face whatever Yakov tells me tomorrow."

Then he turns to Yuri, profile half in darkness, the small lines by his eyes more pronounced, "What about you?"

"Me?"

"Are you going to run away?"

Later, when Yuri walks back with Otabek to the hospital, half running to get away from the chill, he'll realize that the date is February 14th. Mila will squeal at him, calling Victor and Yuuri over from her pager, but for now, he shakes his head and grabs Otabek's hand, pressing it above his chest, his heart fluttering.

 

"You're leaving us?" Georgi says at Yuri's farewell party, looking sad. Yuri barely hears him, eyes tracking Yuuri's progress across the room with his champagne.

It's June now, and Yuri has already accepted his offer to specialize. Yakov had given him a beady look, snorting about youth as the buzzer by his hip beeped incessantly in his office that day.

"Only for a little bit, I want to change my specialty."

Georgi pouts, half swaying in his seat as he nurses a cup of wine, "Alright, do visit okay?"

"I'm still going to be working here, just a different department," Yuri tries to sooth him, but sighs when fat drops of tears escape Georgi's eyes. "I forgot you're an emotional drunk."

Seung-gil arrives by his side, "I'll take care of Mr. Sad here. I think your surgeon just came."

Yuri perks up and turns to the door, grinning when Otabek waves, a dark blue lanyard with his new hospital ID swinging back and forth as he shrugs out of his jacket. Dr. Zhang had been ecstatic when Otabek had not been kicked out, and instead, moved to the Cardiac Department after Yakov's review. The walk from Neurology to Cardiology is further than it was when Otabek had been in Laboratories, but now that Yuri is training to be a scrub nurse, they'll be working in the same department. Mila in turn, will replace Yuri's position as Head Nurse. Everyone wins.

Yuri greets him with a quick peck, ignoring Victor's and Chris's hooting in the background as he looks at the new ID, "Otabek Altin, Cardiothoracic Surgeon."

"Weird, huh?" 

"I mean, you went from a lab tech to a surgeon, I'd say that's one hell of a promotion," Yuri teases. His good mood is interrupted when Victor saunters up to them, champagne staining his cheeks a dark pink.

"Guess wha?" He slurs.

"Good God, how much did you drink?" Yuri chokes, fanning Victor's breath away from his face.

Victor continues, batting his eyelashes at Otabek, "Since Yurio will be part of Cardiology soon...and you're a CS...and I'm a neurosurgeon...and Yuuri is a neurororology nurse, we should have competitions!" He declares, wobbling on the spot. Yuri yells when Victor tips one way and dives to catch him, "Find out who's the besh couple! Neurology versus Cardiology!"

Yuri looks pitifully at him, releasing his arm as Victor drops to the floor and whines about his sore butt, "Die."

"Mean!"

**Author's Note:**

> twitter @yaboyhajime


End file.
